Chatham-Kent’s chief financial officer Gord Quinton didn’t hold back and set the tone in his opening remarks during the first night of budget deliberations.
Quinton’s opening message could be summed up in saying blame Doug Ford for your higher municipal property taxes.
While he didn’t use the word downloading, Quinton did explain the financial difficulties that Ontario has put onto places like Chatham-Kent, saying municipal taxpayers have been subsidizing federal and provincial governments in recent years.
Senior level funding accounted for 38 percent of the funding of the 2018 Chatham-Kent budget. By the year 2027, senior level funding will be projected to fall to 32 percent of the budget.
That six percent impact will represent $29 million more that Chatham-Kent property taxpayers will have to pay.
“Property owners are paying far more than what property tax is meant to pay for,” said Quinton, calling the property tax system broken in Ontario.
Meantime, council members found some savings in the capital budget during the first night of deliberations.
A lengthy discussion focused on whether to reduce the budgeted premium on asset management lifecycle inflation from 2.3 percent to one percent, resulting in savings of $943,435 for the 2024 budget year.
Councillor Anthony Ceccacci, who made the motion to reduce the asset management lifecycle inflation, said he doesn’t see a lot of low-hanging fruit in the budget.
“I cannot support a budget at seven percent not knowing that we made a valid attempt at finding cost savings,” Ceccacci.
Council also approved making the same reduction for the 2025, 2026 and 2027 budget years.
The proposed police services budget was passed with a 6.29 percent increase compared to the year prior. Chief Gary Conn outlined plans last week to hire 43 new full-time staff over the next four years.
A motion to reduce the police services budget by $250,000 a year for each year of the multi-year budget, for a savings of $1 million and deferring those costs to the 2028 multi-year budget, failed by a vote of 7-9.
With the changes, Chatham-Kent’s proposed tax increase for 2024 now sits at 6.03%, down from the initial proposed 6.57% heading into deliberations. The average increase over four years has fallen to 7.33%.
Talks at the Civic Centre continue tonight.